Late Wednesday night, Seattle police arrested Justin Miles Jasper, a drifter from Nevada, after the truck in which he'd been seen sleeping the day before at the University of Washington turned up stolen. A search revealed that Jasper was carrying quite an arsenal--a rifle with a scope attachment, a shotgun, a machete, body armor and numerous Molotov cocktails. The initial search on Tuesday turned up clean, but a second search on Wednesday morning revealed the truck had been stolen out of Butte, Montana. I diaried on this yesterday.
Based on what's come out so far, we just escaped a real tragedy. That was underlined at yesterday's bail hearing. King County deputy prosecutor Andrew Hamilton revealed Jasper had maps to three Seattle colleges.
Jasper was booked on charges of possessing an incendiary device, and Hamilton told the judge he remained under investigation for stealing the truck and guns.
Hamilton also said police found “anti-government” literature in the pickup and had located Internet postings about a number of issues, including recent protests across Brazil that have been met with violence by the police.
Jasper allegedly promised to “make sure that people understand and noticed it ... somewhere in the Western United States.”
The maps detailed the campuses of South Seattle Community College, Seattle University and the UW, Hamilton said.
I don't think it takes a degree from the UW to figure out Jasper was planning a massacre. Small wonder that he's being held on $2 million bail.
We also got some insight on how Jasper managed to get his hands on the guns and body armor. Jasper was traveling through Idaho when he met a trucker from Butte, Erik Henderson.
Henderson, 46, said Jasper described himself as an “anarchist.”
“But you hear that from a lot of college-aged kids these days,” he said, adding that Jasper was friendly and “seemed normal.”
Jasper had a long list of gripes about topics ranging from the chemical industry to genetically altered foods to voting rights, Henderson said.
Henderson discovered his pickup, guns and body armor missing Tuesday after returning home from 11 days on the road.
Jasper, he said, had left a message saying he was driving to Seattle to “argue with some legislators about some issues he was upset at.”
Henderson said the guns were hunting weapons, and he still had the body armor from when he served in Iraq as a contract convoy trucker. The only reason he initially didn't want to prosecute Jasper is because he doesn't have time to take off work to go to Seattle for the trial.
It cannot be said enough--had that second search not been made, we might have very well been dealing with a tragedy. I wish there was a way to find out who the cop was who thought something didn't quite add up with Jasper even though the first search turned up clean. That cop deserves a medal--he or she is a hero, plain and simple.